My Tiny Little Nugget

Brooklynn has been smiling more and more each day. She usually is all smiles in the morning, so I brought my camera upstairs this week. A big smile had still eluded me all week long, until yesterday. Right before she went down for another nap, she was real happy and I caught it on camera.

I love her big, toothless smile!

I would like to say she was smiling at me, but Justin Timberlake was on Ellen.  I think she likes him as much as I do!

Her pensive side

She's thinking about being sad.

Not only does she have the cutest smile, but she also makes the BEST sad faces I've ever seen! 

She just pouts that bottom lip out and has the saddest sounding cry.

Here she's done with the photo shoot and ready to sleep.

I just love this tiny, little girl!!  She's such a good baby!

Potty Training Tales

I'd like to say that we're almost done with potty training here, but when can you ever truly think that?   When you make it through a nap without a pull up?  or when you make it through the night with a dry diaper?  or when kindergarten starts? Just when I think Bailey is doing great, we have a day like today--pooping in the pool with friends and then peeing twice in a pull up.

You could say that I like potty training just as much as I like being pregnant--I'm not a big fan of either.  I really love the outcome of both items, but just wish that I could magically fast forward to the end result for both.  These are two instances in my life where I don't enjoy the journey at all.  Despite all the frustration with potty training, there are some rather funny moments:

Peanut Butter Ice Cream: 
Last week I wanted two things with all my heart--Bailey to stop pooping in her big girl panties and frozen yogurt.  Bailey had had a few bad days in a row in regards to doing #2 in her big girl panties and I was sick of it.  I am all about bribing her to go potty, so I told her that if she went poop in the potty we could go get ice cream (frozen yogurt) after dinner.  She thought about it for a moment, and then quietly asked from her car seat, "Peanut butter ice cream?"  I quickly thought about it and said, "Sure!"

Now why is this a big deal?  It is because we have been telling Bailey her whole life that she's allergic to peanuts.  Brian is allergic to peanuts so we were just being really cautious because allergic reactions to peanuts can be pretty severe.  She had an allergy test earlier in the year, and everything came back clear but we were still waiting on peanuts.  So Bailey knew that asking for and eating peanut butter ice cream would be a momentous occasion in her life.  It also shows what a little negotiator she is!  If I had known that all it would take was peanut butter to get her potty trained, it would have happened a long time ago! 

Once we got home she promptly went poop in the potty and so we all were rewarded with frozen yogurt.  Bailey ate a big bowl of it with tons of toppings and loved every last drop.  The next day she even ate her very first PB&J sandwhich for lunch.  Since then she has kind of come a peanut butter fanatic.  I might just start offering spoonfuls of peanut butter for rewards, but I worry she might turn into one of those huge kids on the Maury Povich show who eat ribs for dinner with baby bottles filled with soda.

Isn't it Ironic?:
One of the big rewards that I had posted for Bailey was a date to see the movie HOP.  I printed out a picture of it and taped it to the bathroom wall.  I told her that when she was totally done wearing diapers, we could go see the movie.  Last week was a pretty good week and Brian was home from work, so we took her to see the movie on Friday.  She was so excited to see it!!  She wanted her own drink and a tiny popcorn.  We sat in those front seats at the bottom of the stadium seating.  She laughed and danced through the whole movie.  She even asked to go to the bathroom during the movie.  Brian took her out, since I had Brooklynn asleep in my arms.  I was so proud of her! 

On the way out of the movie theater, she had a meltdown because of all the candy that she couldn't have.  It was also well past her nap time, so we were in dangerous territory.  Bailey is not one of those kids who you can just put in her crib and let her cry it out until she eventually calms down.  When she cries and is upset, it quickly escalates and spirals out of control rapidly.  In the car she continued to cry for the candy that she couldn't eat.  After about 10 minutes, she  quieted down but was still very upset.  As we drove home I reached back to hold her hand, but she wouldn't give me her hand.  She always gives me her hand, so I asked her what was wrong.  When I looked back she had THAT look on her face.  She had, in fact, peed her pants on the way home from her potty training reward.  Isn't that irony for you!  That is what Alanis Morissette should have sung about in her song.  I do take partial blame for the accident since we did push through her nap time.  But I guess accidents will happen no matter what the occasion.

Highlights:  She did make it through an entire day at Trisha's house with dry big girl panties!  She even made it through a nap without a pull up.  That means that she remembered to go potty even though she was playing with friends all day long.  I do feel like we're very close to being done, but I should just keep an extra outift in my car for a while.  She asks to go on her own all the time and doesn't even expect a reward.  She can do this!  We can do this!

What a Week!

Last week was such a fun week and what a wonderful way to end it yesterday with Easter.  Brian was able to take the past two weeks off from work and it was awesome!  The first week we just did stuff around the house and tried to get things checked off our to do list.  Last week we went out on the town with two kids; we really did something fun everyday.  It was nice to be so adventurous so soon, because I'm still not brave enough to do these things on my own.  So here's our week in review:
Monday:  We went to Sea World.  I was a little off my game because I didn't even bring my camera.  Bailey loves Sea World!  She loves the animals and all the Sesame Street characters there.  We wanted to see the new dolphin show Blue Horizon, so we planned our time around that.  The show was very cool and Bailey loved it.  She was laughing hysterically at the dophins jumping and all the acrobatic people flying around the stage.  I used my Baby Bjorn front carrier thing for most of the day and loved it.  I only used it once with Bailey when she was big enough to face out and I hated it.  Brooklynn is still small enough that she just snuggles up in a little ball and falls asleep.  Bailey did notice a slight weakness in that I can't run as fast with it on or climb things.  She took full advantage of the opportunity and sprinted to a staircase for employees only that she thought would lead her to a ride.  I ran after her as fast as I could and then did my best mad mom voice and froze her in her tracks.  After that, we headed into meltdown mode and home.

Tuesday: We headed up to Grandma and Grandpa Mosher's house so they could meet Brooklynn. Brooklynn had an appointment in the morning (where she weighed 8 pounds 12 ounces!) we then picked up Tera and headed up to Pasadena. We met Toni there around noon. They were so excited to meet Brooklynn and Bailey was thrilled to spend the afternoon at their house. I just loved watching them hold Brooklynn! Bailey is kind of obsessed with Grandma Mosher. The entire time she wanted Grandma to watch her do this, play with her, go feed the turtles, or just have her undivided attention. All of her sentences began with an adorable, long, drawn out, "Graaaaandmaaaa Moooosheeer!" And Grandma loved every minute of it! She is so patient and loving with her.  We ate a yummy lunch from our favorite pizza place and then headed home in time to avoide the traffic.

Bailey did not want to leave Grandma's side all afternoon.

It was fun to have Toni meet us there.  She doesn't pass up an opportunity to hang out with Bailey and Brooklynn.

An added bonus--Wesley was able to stop by to hang out for a while.  He is such a great cousin!

Grandpa's magic touch--he has always been able to calm all babies down with it.

When Bailey wasn't with Grandma, she was playing with Grandpa.

Grandpa let her pick two of his beautiful roses to take home. 

Grandma was so happy to meet Brooklynn and Brooklynn was so comfy and cozy in her arms.

Bailey and Tera

Grandma and the girls

Wednesday:  This was our day of relaxation and running errands.

Thursday:  We went to Disneyland!  We picked up Toni in the morning and headed off to the happiest place on earth.  It was super crowded, but we still had fun.  The first half of the day we went on Dumbo, walked around Toon Town, and hung out with in Princessland.  Bailey was not in the mood to wait in any more lines and on the verge of melting down after dancing with the princesses, so we went to Toni's house for a halftime nap.  Toni made a little bed for Bailey and she took a great nap and woke up ready for round two.  It was fun to hang out at Toni and Aaron's house.  When we went back after naptime, we went straight to California Adventure.  We didn't know what to expect, but ended up having a lot of fun.  We were able to walk right on a couple of rides since everyone was waiting to get a good spot for the World of Color show.  We were just going to eat and then go to Disneyland to watch the fireworks, but we were able to watch part of the World of Color show.  It was from a distance looking around some palm trees, but it was an amazing show.  We left that show early to go watch the fireworks at Disneyland.  We watched those for a while and then went back to go home around 10:00ish.  Bailey did awesome during the second half of the day and Brooklynn was a little dream baby all day long!  I have yet to experience a dream day at Disneyland where there are no crowds and you walk right on to everything, but it was a wonderful family day.

Bailey almost lost her mind waiting in line for Dumbo.  Every time the ride would start up again, she would get so mad.  She did not quite grasp the concept of waiting in line for a long time.  Once we were on the ride, she was happy as could be.

We're all giving Brian a peace sign as we flew by.

Bailey is showing off her extreme strength.

She looks like she might be singing I'm a Little Teapot, but it's just one of her classic poses.  She makes me laugh.

Family photo with tiny Brooklynn.

We are Toy Story toys trapped in the box.

Bailey and Brian riding seahorses on the merry go round.

Me and my girls--we had a great day.

Friday:  We took a quick trip down to the temple (which Bailey loved) and then we saw the movie HOP.  It was a funny movie and we all liked it.  There is a really funny story about this outing, but I'll write about it in my next post.

Saturday:  We had our family Easter celebration a day early.  The day started out with a family tennis session.  I haven't played tennis in a long time, since I was pregnant, so I was a little rusty, but still had fun.  The next item on the agenda was to decorate eggs.  We all made some beautiful eggs.  Brian spent most of the day preparing our gourmet Easter feast of lobster and bacon macaroni and cheese and some sort of delicious berry cake.  The food was well worth the wait!  Later in the afternoon we had an egg hunt and then we ate until we couldn't eat anymore.

Here are our beautiful eggs; the cool colorful ones are Aaron's.  He won the decorating contest with his Jackson Pollock inspired egg.

He is so good with Bailey--even when she turns into a beast!

Bailey loved decorating the eggs.

She was quite disappointed to discover that there wasn't candy inside the boiled eggs.  I had to peel one to show her that it was just an egg.

This is Toni's masterpiece

Dad loves holding Brooklynn--until she starts crying.  She's such a good baby that he can actually play with her for a long time.

So cute!

Best Friends--Bailey and Hailey.  We had the Sullivans over for the Easter party.  It's a lot more fun to have an egg hunt with more than one kid; a solo egg hunt is just kind of boring.  The two of them get along so well these days and it's really fun to watch them play and listen to their profound conversations.

She's one happy girl with two baskets filled with eggs.

She didn't know what to think about this egg.  Toni and my mom hid all of the eggs and candy about 30 minutes before Bailey woke up from her nap.  During those 30 minutes, the birds ate several eggs and two bags of fruit snacks!   It was the craziest thing!  This was one of the eggs that the birds had poked into, but didn't eat it.  Bailey was so concerned about what had happened to this egg.

The highlight of the girls' day was playing with the bubbles in the elephant fountain. We're not quite sure how the bubbles got in there, but the girls loved it.  They entertained themselves out here for a long time.  We didn't really mind because it kept them occupied and clean at the same time.

Easter Sunday:  The Easter bunny brought Bailey some cute bunny slippers.  I also hid her basked and wrote/drew clues for her to find it.  She had a fun time looking for her basket and loved everything inside it.  I also had a fun time hiding everything and attempting to draw pictures that Bailey could understand.  My favorite part of the day was the fact that my girls were twinners at church!  It was my first, of many, sister matching moments!  Brooklynn's dress was huge on her and slightly scandalous with the sleeves falling off the shoulders for most of the day.  They looked absolutely adorable!  We even made it through all three hours of church!  After church we went to Roxann and Dan's house for an Easter dinner.  It was fun to hang out with them since they've been in Kentucky for two weeks.   Adam and Teryn came too, so it was a fun family celebration.

Here's Bailey with her bunny slippers

This was the best shot we could get of the girls.  I had to take the picture after church sicne we were running behind schedule in the morning.  I'll have to attempt another photo session the next time they wear these dresses to church.  Hopefully, both of them will be in a good mood next time.

I had a more successful photo session with Brooklynn after she ate and slept.  She is starting to smile a little bit each day.  I haven't been able to capture her huge smiles, but this is a tiny almost smile.

One Month Old!

On tax day, April 15th, Brooklynn was one month old--and what a month it's been!  I am glad to announce that she's finally gaining some weight, but it took a three day stay in the hospital to put some meat on her bones.  Here's the story of our lovely hospital stay:

Last Friday, I took Brooklynn back to the doctor's office to weigh her in again.  I was nervous, but felt positive that she had to have gained at least one ounce since Monday.  When the nurse put her on the scale, I gasped because she had not gained anything and might have even dropped a little.  I went back to the exam room to wait for the doctor.  When she came in, I was surprised to see that it was a completely new doctor that I had never seen before.  She looked at the chart on the computer and then told me that she thought Brooklynn might need to go back to the hospital.  I was so shocked because it never crossed my mind that that would be her suggestion.  I was expecting her to suggest tons of formula and to give up on nursing completely.  I asked her why and she said that she was afraid we had waited too long to take action.  Too long for what?!  She then left the room to consult with the other doctors; I then immediately started to cry and called Brian, my mom, and my sisters. 

When she came back in, it didn't get any better.  She said that everyone agreed a hospital stay was necessary and that we should go immediately.  She thought her eyes looked sunken in (even though she had never seen Brooklynn before) and was very concerned about her blood sugar levels.  I asked if I could just go home and give her tons of formula, but she said no.  (If you can't tell, I am not a big fan of this doctor or her reactions.)  I sadly went home and prepared to go back to the hospital.  Luckily, Toni and Keri were down for the week and could take care of Bailey.  Brian left work early and we drove down to San Diego.

Once we checked in we met with a really nice doctor who didn't freak out and clearly explained everything and answered all of Brian's questions.  They took Brooklynn and took a bunch of blood--from her hand, both arms, and the worst one was from her head.  Their main concern was that at 24 days old she still had not gotten back up to her birth weight.  They had me nursing her every 2 1/2 hours and then supplementing with formula.  I had to write down how long she nursed and how much formula she ate, to measure her intake; they also weighed each diaper to measure her output.  I was so nervous and stressed because it reminded me too much of when Bailey was in the NICU for two months.  I was not up to another two month stay in the hospital.

It was a long first night in the hospital by myself on the world's worst excuse for a bed/chair.  By Saturday morning some of her test results were back and the only abnormal thing was her liver enzyme count.  The doctor said that it was 2 1/2 times higher than it should be.  Because of the liver test, they now had to run a million other tests to make sure that it wasn't some weird virus or that her liver was shutting down or many other horrific scenarios that played out in my head.  I can kind of be a worst case scenario girl some of the time.

Saturday my mom came and spent the day with me and Brooklynn, while my sisters took care of Bailey and Brian flew to Kentucky for his Pop's funeral.  They continued to run tests on her all day in between her very frequent feeding schedule.  She was eating a ton of food and loving it!  I felt like everything with Brooklynn was going to be just fine and that her liver count was up simply because she had been starving for the first 24 days of her life.  Knowing that your child has been starving and it's only because of you, it can kind of make a mom feel bad.  By Saturday night, I was about to lose my mind and had decided that we really needed to go home tomorrow.

Sunday morning I met with the GI specialist and the dietician and they felt like we would probably go home today.  I was so excited to leave the hospital and be able to be comfortable back in our house and able to sleep in my wonderful bed.  Later that morning the really nice Dr. Suarez came back to talk with us and she said they had to run more tests and should probably stay until Monday.  I know that I probably looked like the world was about to end when she said that we might have to stay another day.  My mom was there for that meeting, so she asked a lot of questions to try to see if there was any way that we could leave today as long as Brooklynn was gaining weight.  Bottom line is that she had gained weight (because she was eating a ton) and we were able to come home.  She now just has to get more blood tests done every week and frequent doctor's visits to make sure she's chunking up.  I had to write this to get it out of my head, but it made me stressed just thinking about it.  To prove how much I hated it and stressed I was, I did not even bring my camera to take any pics during our entire stay.  I'm glad it's over and so glad we're home and can be normal again.  At her last appointment, she was up to almost 8.8 and the liver tests were looking much better.

Now for some cute pics not related to the hospital:

Photo session with Toni :)

So glad that Keri came down to meet Brooklynn and then was able to help watch Bailey while we had our hospital stay.

Keri and the girls

I just love her cute little face in this picture.  I might use this for her announcement because she looks so adorable.

Bailey and Grammy--thank goodness for my family being able to help out with everything.  Bailey didn't miss me for one second because she was always having fun.

This look is why I think she and Bailey might be twins.  This is a classic Bailey look that she still uses today and Brooklynn has it too.

Bailey and Keri in her sweet 80's wind breaker!

Another photo session with Toni.  Notice the lovely stick on earrings.

I couldn't leave out Doby and Shorty; they were so happy to be reunited.

Ty came down for a few days this past week for a training at the YMCA and he was able to meet Brooklynn.  She was so happy that she even smiled for the picture!